Militants, Al Qaeda | featured news

France called on Saturday on other world powers to commit money and logistical support for African armies readying their troops to join French soldiers already battling al Qaeda-linked militants in Mali.

At least 13 soldiers and 13 suspected al-Qaida militants were killed in an attack on an army base in the southern province of Abyan on Friday.

The White House is now describing the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazias a “terrorist attack,” a shift in emphasis after days of describing the lethal assault as a spontaneous eruption of anger over an anti-Islamic film made in California.

A militant who fought alongside Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and is now the leader of a group affiliated with Al-Qaeda in South Yemen has struck a deal with the United States and Saudi Arabia to send 5,000 Al-Qaeda fighters into Syria according to reports out of the Middle East.

They came in Toyota pick-up trucks, dozens of heavily armed masked men, firing machineguns and waving the black flag of al Qaeda as terrified residents and police huddled indoors, and then disappeared again, melting away into the mountains and remote villages of Egypt's Sinai desert.

Al-Qaeda's Yemeni offshoot confirmed the killing of U.S.-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki late last month.

Hundreds of Islamic militants solidified their control over a town in southern Yemen Sunday after seizing tanks in clashes with fleeing soldiers, military officials said. Opponents of the country’s embattled president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, accused him of allowing the militants to freely seize Zinjibar in a bid to stoke Western fears that al-Qaida would take over the country if he responded to demands by demonstrators to step down.

Al Qaeda has acknowledged that Osama bin Laden is dead, dispelling the doubts of some Muslims over whether the militant group's leader had really been killed by U.S. forces, and vowed to mount more attacks on the West.

American missiles struck twice in the tribal region that is a stronghold of Qaeda and Taliban militants.

Ground troops attack militant positions in South Waziristan, a response to a wave of violence that extremists launched in the past two weeks.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani troops launched a long-awaited ground offensive into the Taliban and Al Qaeda stronghold of South Waziristan today, beginning what experts say will be the country's most challenging chapter yet in the ongoing war on terror.